


An augustinian history

by Betty26Blue



Category: Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Genre: Adrinath August, Ancient Rome, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Boys' Love, Fanfiction, M/M, Roma | Rome, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 09:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18547480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Betty26Blue/pseuds/Betty26Blue
Summary: In the Augustan's imperial Rome, many loves were born and finished, but none as special as that of Publius Virgil Maron and his young slave Alessi.Virgil was a very shy, coy and solitary man. He never had a wife, but he was in deep love with his slave Alessi, a young, stubborn and impertinent boy. This is the beginning of a story that has lasted for over 20 years!





	An augustinian history

It all started in a clear spring day, a day to spend in the fields, or in the street to play, or even in the theatre to look at merciless entertainment or in the public baths. For someone it was a terrible day, perhaps due to certain divine adversities focused on them, while for others, more likable to the gods, it was a morning full of blessings.  
The lawyers fought in court, the emperor enjoyed his famous Augustinian peace, the mothers spanked their children, and the writers, the ones already known, were in the circle of Maecenas, sharing ideas, good wine or simple anecdotes.  
It was always like that in the circle, among lust, partying, money and creativity, everyone found an activity that suited them. Among general laughter, obscene jokes and great speeches, it was not difficult to notice, in a corner of one of the many rooms, a lonely poet, far from everyone, seated in silence, without exchanging a word with anyone, if not a few acquaintances who weren’t sure if they thought of themselves as his friends. The young Virgil was just 30 years old, none of his work was noteworthy yet, but he had years of studies. Virgil seemed to be very shy because he spoke little and he didn’t easily join the debates or go into the crowd, he didn’t talk about his ideas and in his first public speech he had made such a ridiculous figure that many writers didn’t understand the reason for Maecenas's sympathy for him (many of which, in the future, weren’t going to be remembered even by mistake). In fact Virgil in his first public speech didn’t say a single word. He had been staring at his audience in silence, mute and scared.  
He was about come back to Naples at that time. In a few days he would finally come back to his quiet life in the countryside, in the tranquillity of nature, in the heart-breaking memory of his ancient heritage taken away from him during civil wars, but in a cherished dream of a peaceful future, immersed in books, whose reading could not be ruined by his defects in pronunciation as in a speech, and immersed in the peacefulness of writing. The last one was a tormented love: Virgil, like many writers, lived in the love and hatred of his works: the juvenile ones embarrassed him to the point of hoping that they would be forgotten and burned. The current ones instead remained constantly incomplete, interrupted, revised for days and days and deleted, deleted, deleted and never rewritten.  
(Luck perhaps wants that many of Virgil's early works are now be questioned, since most academics don’t believe they belong to him. Virgil you can catch a breath, no one believes you wrote them!)  
Virgil silently watched the other writers at Maecenas’s, and saw one of his friends, Asinio Pollione. "Publius! Are you leaving then?"  
"Yes, I'm going back to Naples."  
"But what are you going to do in Naples!! Here we are in Rome, Publius! This is where the greats are born!"  
"Oh, Asinio, I understand but to be honest I can't write anything here in Rome. Maybe I can't write anything in general. I don't know how to talk properly, I don’t know how to write either." Asinio hugged him with a friendly pat amused by him. Virgil looked at him frowning but trying to smile.  
"Hey, Maecenas has never missed a shot, he got everyone right, everyone! The greatest writers are here Virgil, and you're here! There must be a reason!"  
"Maecenas is crazy?" Asinio laughed happily under Virgil's embarrassed gaze, who realized he was not being taken seriously at all.  
"You can't write because you're too busy! You need someone to do all the work for you!”  
"Oh, Asinio, I don't know what you're talking about but..."  
"Tomorrow come to my house before leaving, Virgil, and I'll give you something essential for your life. Trust me, you won't regret it."  
Virgil didn't believe even remotely that Asinio could give to him a gift somehow useful and indeed he had serious qualms about that. However, he was a man of honour and showed up at his home as promised. The friend gave him a warm welcome offering him grapes, bananas (hehe you fell for it, right? Bananas didn’t exist in Italy at the time), other delicacies and wine, which Virgil politely refused.  
"Come, come Publius." Asinio said as he walked through the hall of his domus. "It’s difficult for me to part from him, I assure you it's a pain because he was very useful. But for you, my friend, this and more! I'm going to give you the best slave in my house."  
"Slave?? No Asinio I don't need... "  
"Alessi! Alessi get over here now!” Asinio shouted, apparently without being able to be heard. "He is the youngest slave in my house and he needs to learn some manners, but I assure you he’s obedient". He called him again and, having no answer, he walked quickly along the hallway with some irritation. Virgil shook his head worried, starting to stutter for agitation.  
"No, Asinio that’s unnecessary, he probably hasn’t heard you, your house is big! I don’t need a slave Asinio!” He saw him grabbing a boy by one arm pulling him down from the two steps that joined the atrium to the tablinum. He seemed to hold him with force as he dragged him towards Virgil, who quickly approached them. Asinio stopped, still gripping the lad’s arm, and the poet noticed the arrogant and angry eyes of the young man, who for a moment stared at the face of his old master. Then he quickly lowered his gaze, staring at the floor in placid obedience. Virgil looked with his mouth half open in surprise at that young man, whose thick and dark hair fell on that rebellious face, now bent by his role. As he stared at him he felt the desire to see those bright black pearls burning with the determination that he had been able to see for that single moment, upon him.  
"Alessi will be happy to serve you Virgil, he is a good lad. He works hard and follows the orders, all the orders." Asinio grabbed him by his hair making him lift his face. "He will follow you wherever you want. He is a gift I give you and as I told you before, my heart cries for this but you need him more than me. Are you sure you don't want him?" Virgilio slowly raised his hand and then grabbed hard at the young man wrist, pulling him behind his back.  
"Thank you Asinio. I appreciate it very much." They friendly greeted each other despite Virgil feeling a knot of rage in his stomach, thinking about Asinio's hand clutching the boy's stiff hair or his arm. He was strongly opposed to that kind of behaviour. He hated that people were treated like that and he hated that they were sold and given away as a vulgar jewel. Normally he would have rejected that offer, But he preferred to think that he had accepted the young man to be able to guarantee him a peaceful life, like the one he wanted to live himself.  
They didn’t say a single word, neither reaching the horse to return to Naples nor during the first part of the journey, until the evening. They were slow because Alessi didn’t have a horse to ride and he had to follow his master. Virgil watched him walking, feeling guilty of all that road travelled sitting on the back of his horse, the only one he had to ride. He nervously opened and closed his lips, looking at the young man's dark head, his black eyes staring into a non-defined point in front of them, and his lips pursed in a mute anger. "Do...Do you…" Alessi looked up, Virgil looked away squeezing the horse's mane, cursing himself for not being able to invite him to ride with him, blaming his pronunciation defects and his shyness for that. They stopped for the night. The young man promptly gave food to the horse, brushing it skilfully. Virgil looked at him wondering how tired he was, how much he was hating him and how hungry he must have been. He took food from the place where it was and gave Alessi a good portion of it without hesitation. "E...Ea…" He cursed himself again hating that damn shyness like when he had abandoned his oratory studies because of it. He simply pushed the plate in front of him. Alessi looked at him with surprise and then turned serious again.  
"Master?" Virgil jumped at the word but unable to be totally annoyed, he simply looked down and started to eat.  
Two more days of travel passed this way, with nights tormented by dreams with Alessi, his Alessi, in the arms of Asinio naked while they were...Every time Virgil awoke in a cold sweat. It must have happened and it was obvious because of the same words of Asinio.  
They were now close to Naples. Alessi, irritated by that continuous silence, without orders of any kind, even if he wasn’t used to it, he turned nervously towards his master on horseback. " Master forgive my impudence, but aren’t you going to ever talk? Only point your finger?"  
"No..." He looked down ashamed and then turned to Alessi. "We’re almost there, get on the horse."  
"What? Why should I?"  
"It will be less harder for you...Get on the horse." Alessi kept walking, Virgil would never have dared to tell him not to disobey, as he had no intention of giving him any order. He got off the horse and joined Alessi. The young man looked at him astonished and Virgil smiled sweetly. "In Naples you will work with me. There will be papers to clean up, letters to read, letters to write..." Alessi looked at him worried and clenched his fists feeling humiliated.  
"I don't know how to do those things." The poet looked at him with surprise, then smiled.  
"I'll teach you everything!"  
The first night in Naples finally passed after a peaceful sleep. When Virgil awoke again, he felt like to write. He was lying on his bed with his heart racing. "I will be his teacher! His Patroclus, his erastès!” He blushed completely at that thought, putting his hands on his face.  
When he arrived in the room he used to work, Alessi was already there and he seemed all focused on looking for something. Probably any whip that he could have been flogged with in punishment for disobedience. Objects that Virgilio obviously didn’t possess. "It’s everything all right, Alessi?"  
"Of course, of course!" The boy answered immediately even if he looking around for the rest of the time, although Virgilio tried to capture his attention with his lessons.  
"Alessi, I don't know what you're looking for with so much interest, but you can tell me anything."  
"Why are you talking like that?" The boy asked him with a strange look of defiance. "It's annoying!" Virgil looked at him surprised, then lowered his sad gaze. Alessi stared at him for a moment and then clasped his hands together bowing his head.  
"You know, sometimes I wonder too, but I can't change it. Anyway, it's not very polite to point that out." The boy looked at him with surprise. "I don't know what you're used to Alessi, but with me you can talk freely. Still, I don't insult you, and I'd like if you could avoid doing that too."  
"I'm sorry," the young man replied, then smiled at him. "Actually, I served masters who spoke fluently yet talked shit. For lack of a better word.” Virgil stared at him confused and then burst out laughing, honestly amused.  
"Well, Asinio is such an asinine man. I don't doubt it." The boy held his head in his hands and laughed.  
"This is terrible!"  
"That's why I don't deal with satire!"  
After that first day the relationship between the two became more confidential: the veil of fear master-slave had already disappeared. Alessi was learning, even though he was often bored and surly. He didn't like to write or read.  
One afternoon, Alessi was sitting among the numerous papers he had to sort, trying to read the new work on which Virgil was working. "What are you doing, Alessi?"  
"Are these your works?"  
"Ah! Old stuff!” He picked up the papers quickly putting them in a basket. Alessi pressed his new work to his chest. "No, give it to me, I have to read it again!"  
"What’s an eclogue?"  
"Poem.”  
"Do you know that you stutter when you're upset? When you’re quiet it’s just looks like a strange accent."  
"Give me back my work!"  
"But I want to read it!"  
"No! I have to correct it, see it again and maybe rewrite it!” He bent down trying to get it from Alessi who lay down on the floor laughing, holding it to his chest.  
"But you've already done it! You have been rewriting this piece for weeks! Go ahead!"  
"Alessi I'm getting angry! Give me those papers back!" He tried to take the papers from his arms while Alessi moved them from one hand to the other. "Alessi!"  
"But I just want..." Virgil's lips were suddenly pressed against his. The poet placed a hand on his face in a soft caress while with the other he put some distance between them. Alessi’s eyes fluttered as he savoured the lips of his master, then hr grumbled, opening them again. He put his hands against Virgil’s chest pushing him. "I thought you were different!" He almost screamed in confusion. He really liked being in that situation with Virgil, compared to being in the arms of his previous masters, but until that moment he’d found he had nothing in common with Virgil, and finding it so suddenly made him angry.  
"No Alessi, I ..." Alessi left the papers, moving his master from above him to get up. "Alessi!" Virgil stood up, grabbing him. "Alessi, I don't want to give you any order! I don't want to force you to do anything!"  
"Oh, that’s not a problem, I'm a slave: that's what I do. At least refrain to put up such a comedy." Virgil made him turn to face him, leaning his forehead against his.  
"Alessi you are a stubborn mule. I absolutely don't want to force you into something you don't want. I would never do it. I just want you to be close to me like you did in these days, always! And I don't want to know what other people were like, you're with me and I won't give you to anyone else even if you refuse my love forever."  
"Stop talking like that! Stop it! I don't know what to do with you! I don't know..." Alessi looked at him almost trembling and then leaned against his chest, hugging his gown. "I'm not going anywhere."  
"Alessi..." Whispered Virgil, squeezing his face and kissing him again.  
Alessi was in the writer's bed, astride Virgil, kissing him passionately. He raised his torso taking off his vest. "Alessi..."  
"No. I won't ask you anything about this, don't do it either. Don't ask me who else I knew this way. You said you didn't want to know. You said I'm with you and only you.” Virgil looked at him seriously then put his hands on his hips, kissing him on his chest.

Alessi laughed as he read the second Eclogue of the Bucoliche by Virgil. He waved the papers, grinning. "You’re so dramatic!"  
"It's...Oh, come on..."  
"Another Alessi then…If it was like that, you would never have found him! There just one Alessi!"  
"Luckily, I have the only one."  
"Stop talking like that! Poor excuse for a poet!” The writer laughed, petting his hair and then holding him.  
"You're learning to read well!"  
"It is not difficult to surpass the master with you!"  
"You really are..."  
They lived together for over 20 years. Alessi followed Virgil in every travel: from Naples to Rome and back, to the courts of Emperor Augustus, until the death of his lover.


End file.
